


you've got a second chance, you could go home.

by MostlyFandomTrash



Series: the just, the traitor, the king. [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anyways, Character Death, Edmund Pevensie-centric, M/M, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, bold of u to assume that edmund and caspian are not gay as fuck, bold of u to assume that edmund and lucy were just going to up and leave narnia again, have some angst, uwu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/pseuds/MostlyFandomTrash
Summary: they stand at the edge of the world , at a wall made of water , and his mouth tastes like ashes ." aslan . ” he says , wind roaring louder than it should be in his ears as he waits for the great lion to turn around and face him once more ; when he does , and says nothing, the king of the old narnian ways continues , head half - way bowed , “ do we have to leave ? "/or , getting crowned in silver leaves only to be thrown back into a world you no longer know as your own .
Relationships: Aslan & Edmund Pevensie, Caspian/Edmund Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Eustace Scrubb, Edmund Pevensie & Helen Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Peter Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Series: the just, the traitor, the king. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842982
Comments: 7
Kudos: 131





	you've got a second chance, you could go home.

( _pick it up , pick it all up_

_and start again_

_you ' ve got a second chance_

_you could go home_

_escape it all_ )

he is cold -- he is usually cold , here in wet , dreary london , but this is the sort of cold that comes with falling far enough into his own thoughts that he can no longer remember what the halls of cair paravel looked like when during the summers , or the way he knew every passageway in and out of their home the same way he knew each of his siblings ( he doesn ‘ t think he knows those anymore , either , if he ‘ s being honest -- peter is older now , though nowhere near as old as he once was ; susan ‘ s forgotten what it was like to be the gentle queen she once was , talking less and less of narnia ; and lucy [ lucy , who brought them there in the first place , who trusted aslan with a lot more than just her life ] looks less and less like she ‘ s hoping to get back each day they spend at _home_ \-- if he can ever call it home anymore .

he can ‘ t , he knows , but he ‘ s already the strangest of the children as it is ; edmund sees the way his mother looks at him when he flinches away from the gentle snow falling from the sky in the same exact way his father flinches away from loud noises and fireworks -- because he is thirteen and small and scarless but he is thirty and full of pain and bottled - up rage all at the same time . because he is thirteen and still remembers what it was like to watch his older brother bleed out in the middle of a battle - raged field , and he is thirty and still has nightmares about a pale woman in a white coat offering him sweets and everything he could ever want . because he is thirteen and he is thirty and all he wants to do in both lives is go to sleep .

* * *

( _it ' s just irrelevant_

_it ' s just medicine_

_it ' s just medicine_ )

he gets thrown back into narnia in the middle of a train station and for a moment all he can think about is that he must still be at home , in his bed , asleep -- but then lucy is laughing and peter is splashing him with ocean water and susan finally looks like herself again and he can ' t help but feel like the world has righted on its axis . then , he looks up from the bluest ocean he ' s ever seen to find the overhangs of ruins and says to his brother , " i don ' t remember any ruins in narnia , do you ? "

they get out of the water and get to the ruins and when peter finds a pawn from edmund ‘ s narnian chess set on the ground , when lucy looks around the place like she ' s just opened her eyes for the first time in her entire life , when susan pulls an apple off of one of the trees , edmund looks at the raised platform on the inside of the the ruins and says , “ this isn ‘t just a ruin . “

“ what do you mean ? “ susan asks , while lucy and peter stop looking around to look at their brother .

edmund takes a moment to look at the chess piece in peter ‘ s hand and says , “ that ‘ s from my chess set . “

“ which one ? “

“ well , i didn ‘ t exactly have a solid gold chess set in finchley , did i , peter ? “ he pauses , and then peter says , “ i think we ‘ re in cair paravel . “

“ that doesn ‘ t make any sense . . . “ lucy says , concerned . “ we ‘ ve only been gone a few years , not a hundred . “

no one said anything . then , susan spoke : “ what if it has been a hundred years ? we spent twenty years in narnia the last time we were here and got spit out into our younger bodies like nothing had ever happened . what if it just did the opposite ? time sped up . “

again , none of them speak for a long moment .

" come on , " edmund says at last , " it ' s getting dark and i ' m hungry . let ' s get some more apples . "

* * *

( _you could still be_

_what you want to_

_what you said you were_

_when i met you_ )

there is a prince standing in the midst of trees that should be dancing and laughing and swaying but are instead only still and silent -- he tells himself that it is not the prince ' s fault , that the prince had no control over the actions of the predecessors ; he is not entirely convinced -- and his brother has a sword pointed at his throat and the prince says , " you ' re not entirely what i had expected . "

and he looks from each of them to the other , his eyes lingering on the just ' s longer than they do his siblings , and the just smothers down the urge to grin that sharp - toothed grin he ' d had a thousand life times ago . 

" yeah ? " he says , voice feather light and he feels but does not see the way his little sister grins at his side . he and lucy have always know each other best -- a product of being the youngest , of being the just and the valiant , of being merely king and queen with nothing high about them -- and lucy knows very well the tone of voice he is using right now . the just king tilts his lips up in half a smirk and continues : " well , neither are you . "

the prince blinks at him , eyes _earth - tree - dryad skin_ brown and the just can only smirk once more .

* * *

( _you ' ve got a warm heart_

_you ' ve got a beautiful brain_

_but it's disintegrating_ )

he and his siblings are thrown back into england for the second time and he watches the way his older brother ' s hands tremble on the strap of his school bag and his older sister ' s shoulders shake ever - so - slightly with the force of hidden tears as the youngest of the four of them presses herself against their sides and edmund looks to where the cave had been so many days and so few hours ago . he tilts his head back and says , " how long until he get back , you think ? "

" what for ? " peter asks , voice hardly un - even , and he only smiles .

" i left my new torch in narnia . "

there is a beat of silence , and then edmund watches his brother blink , once , and start to laugh .

* * *

( _from all the medicine_

_from all the medicine_

_from all the medicine_

_medicine_ )

the ringing of blades is a welcome sound to his ears -- like the music of the old gatherings or the songs susan used to sing while he did her hair -- and it brings edmund back to a time when he was used to this , to the feeling a blade weighted in his palm and the burn in his muscles as he swung his weapon [ he was always better with two blades , he was always foregoing the shield when they had gone to battle -- it was something that peter had yelled at him for many times during their twenty - three year rule of the lands -- but one blade is sufficient enough for this , for friendly sparring ] . caspian ' s blade clashes against his and edmund could laugh with delight and restlessness and pure joy .

he feels as though he has been asleep for his entire life and had only woken up when the man before him -- for he is not a boy anymore , older than the last time they saw each other -- grinning and swinging a sword at him , had put and arm and around his shoulders and said his name , leading him and his sister into the cabin to give them things that were by all rights their ' s to own . 

and then edmumd ' s sword was at caspian ' s throat , and caspian ' s was at his own and all the just king could do was tilt his head forwards and grin . he murmurs something to the seafarer in between ragged breaths than makes the older man grin -- and if only lord drinian is there to see it when edmund gives him that wild , sharp - toothed grin that comes from growing up three times [ the first , as a traitor ; the second , as a king ; and the third , as a legend ] and yet never growing up at all , and pulls caspian down to kiss him on the mouth , then who is he to say what happens in the king ' s cabin ?

( when lucy grins at him with a sort of mirth later , edmund can only laugh and allow the familiar weight of caspian ' s arm to rest over his shoulder . )

* * *

( _you could still be_

_what you want to be_

_what you said you were_

_when you met me_ )

they stand at the edge of the world , at a wall made of water , and his mouth tastes like ashes .

" aslan . ” he says , wind roaring louder than it should be in his ears as he waits for the great lion to turn around and face him once more ; when he does , and says nothing, the king of the old narnian ways continues , head half - way bowed , “ do we have to leave ? do we have to go back to london ? _again_ ? "

" what would you rather , son of adam ? " the lion asks , as though he is not all knowing and omnipotent here , on the borders of his own country . aslan asks him this question as though he does not already know the words that will spill from the just king ' s lips like water from a river into the vast , open sea .

he looks to the side , where his sister ( a queen who was the first to believe and the last to let go , a queen who ' s lost her kingdom once before and to do so again would kill her , a queen who is the only one left to wear the title of high these days ) , and his cousin ( a boy who knew nothing of the magic hiding in the pores of his skin , a boy who turned into a dragon and back again all for the sake of a lesson learned , a boy who will go back to a place that will never be home again and have to survive in a world void of narnian air and narnian sunlight ) , and the seafarer ( a prince turned king who ' s eyes are still the same _earth - tree - dryad skin_ brown that they were the first time he set sight on them , a prince turned king who he has learned tastes like saltwater and ocean air and worries whispered in the dead of night , a prince turned king that he has left once before and does not have it in him to leave once again ) , and he says to the lion , to the great god of this world , to aslan , " i wish for us to stay . "

the lion smiles , teeth sharp and white as the bones of a witch he ' d slain so long ago with his older brother ' s sword , and says to the just king in the same soft voice he ' d used a thousand lifetimes ago , " then be it so , high king edmund the just , of narnia . "

* * *

( _you could still be_

_what you want to_

_what you said you were_

_when i met you_ )

his silver crown does not exist anymore , lost to the years and to time and to mother nature herself , but when the seafarer presses his lips to the shell of his ear and he listens to the sound of his sister ' s bubbling laughter that once brought great forest gods to their knees and his cousin ' s low conversion with another member of the king ' s crew , edmund finds himself not caring all that much for the weight of a crown on his head just yet . let them get home first , back to the castle on the edge of the sea and a people who have heard the stories for generations of the traitor king and lion queen of old , and then he will let the dwarven peoples in their mines and their caves craft him a new crown fit for a high king . 

for now , he steps away from his seafarer and grabs his sister by the hands and pulls her into a dance only his feet still know the moves to and says , " we ' re home , lucy . "

lucy smiles and nods and laughs and says , " yeah , ed , we ' re home . "


End file.
